Hi,
My myopia- -4 in the right, -5 in the left eye
I started to try the Bates' method a few days ago. So far, I can see some benefits of not wearing glasses at all but don't quite get the grasp of central fixation.
There are no schools of the method near me, and the books written in my native language are chaotic, and I can't fully understand how to apply the central fixation especially for reading, and I might be missing something when I read about the method in English.
As for reading- it is very, very tiresome to my eyes, and if I were to read without glasses, the book would have to be not more than 10 cm away from my eyes. And I believe that's not healthy. I have a pair of glasses about one diopter less and they are sufficient for reading and ocmputer work, but is that correct to wear them? How to make reading less tiresome, as I cannot find anything I could understand.
Could someone explain the central fixation for reading and in general-is it about fixing your eyes on one object or constantly switching between a few (it'd look like nystagmus, is it the goal?)
Well, firstly those reduced lenses are better than your normal ones, though it's better to not use even those for anything other than driving or other things where safety depends on your ability to see (relatively) clearly.
David's blog on this website essentially talks about central fixation. Maybe copying and pasting into Google Translate might help. Although it might get things slightly off in word choice.
You don't want to be staring. That is not central fixation. What you're doing is looking at as small a point as you can for maybe a second, seeing the details, and then move to another one, and do that all the time. I don't think that it's quite as noticeable as nystagmus, because you are looking at a specific pointâwith interest, and then going to another one.
Say for example there's a sign. You look at a letter and see what it is, then you go to the next one, and so on. That's different from wildly moving your eyes around like nystagmus.
Reading, I don't do too bad with it, but I'm not quite an expert at it yet either. You're applying the same principles as in the distance though.
Try (without glasses) to look at a letter on a page without strain. Now by strain, what I mean is you getting really anxious, or squeezing a muscle or muscles in trying to see. You'll just let it happen, following these tips without straining.
This letter on this page, let's say you can see it at 9 cm. Now if you're patient and keep slowly pulling it away, you might be able to get to 11 cm and still recognize it.
It's a small improvement, but still an improvement. Then patiently read the rest of the page looking at the letters each at a time noticing how they are made and see how that does.
Reading at 9 cm is usually not very fun, but if you're working on getting yourself able to read further away, it'll be fine. I started at about 20 cm, and am now at 35+ cm.
Btw, your English writing skills are great!
Nancy, 10 cm is 4 inches, any tips since you started with even worse myopia?
Even though I started with -10 myopia, I was always able to read at least 6" away from my nose -- distance was my big problem, not near vision. I grew up introverted and reading voraciously, books really my only friends, so any kind of reading has usually been an optimum for me.
That said, you're right that the same principles apply as for improving distance vision. Don't strain or grab at the images, relax and let them come in easily. Slow down -- reading too fast leads to grabbing at large chunks of text at the same time, the complete opposite of central fixation. As your skills improve, your speed will increase naturally. When you have the time, play with reading something upside down, just tracing around the letters with your gaze, not trying to interpret the words -- look at corners or edges of letters, practicing seeing a small area at a time. When reading text, see if you can see the white shadow around it, an optical illusion of normal sight that Bate writes about -- the space surrounding a letter will appear whiter than the rest of the page if you're focused on the letter, as will the space inside if there is any. He writes about the "thin white line" underneath a line of normal print, another optical illusion of normal sighted people. Finally, see reading as enjoyable, not a struggle and a strain -- take frequent breaks and have fun with it, enjoying the images your eyes are delivering to your brain.
For the purpose of this forum I gotta switch to inches. I think that's a good way to finally learn using inches.
I just measured the distance and it's actually about 6 inches that I see all the letters clearly.
I know citing modern optometrists is a no-no here but my eye doctor once said reading a text less than 11 inches away from the eyes was very unhealthy and straining to the eyes. What is your guys' take on that? I'd love to start reading without glasses as glasses cause me lots of strain, but I'm not sure about it. Not to mention reading in contacts-they dry my eyes in no time during close-work.
btw. As for speed reading-do you think fixating your eyes on just one word at a time is fine? I know speed reading involves embracing even whole lines.
Until you can easily read without strain and your vision has obviously improved, I'd caution you to stay away from speed reading. It causes harm to the eyes in most methods by using eccentric fixation, for example staring at the middle and trying to grab the whole page at once.
Citing modern eye doctors is fine here, we just often differ in views with them, such as the ability to improve eyesight, and usually quote them to show how a recent experience proved them wrong. Sometimes though they have seen the improvements and actually side with us and give helpful information (think Dr. Bates in his day versus most other eye doctors)
You're learning to implement inches, and I'm learning to implement the metric system! Eventually we'll probably be all metric, but not yet, so you can use whichever one you want.
With your glasses on, you are essentially reading really close, even with the book farther out. Just a point to remember.
I personally though would just use your eye doctor's statement as incentive to work on being able to read beyond 11 inches.
I can see clearly at around 9 inches, but for the same 13 pt text, I can still comprehend it at 14+ inches. You want to move the text as far away as you can and still understand it. It will be blurry, but that's fine.
Weaself Wrote:And what about illumination at home, should it be strong?
Ideally it would be sunlight. But, otherwise just remember that the "best" positions for lighting are behind you, with no glare, and plenty bright, along with the whole room being lighted, and not just a pool of light from one lamp.
Also, while that's the ideal positioning, you can get away with virtually anything if you know how to do it.
As the others have well stated, fatigue and uncomfortableness in reading comes from a variety of reasons, physical and mental. The movements of the eyes when reading are quite the opposite of nystagmus - that's a condition where the eyes move uncontrollably in fast large shifts, or saccades. The shifting of the eye that is reading with central fixation on the other hand, is moving with a very refined series of small shifts, pausing on each fixation for a second (or fraction) long enough to allow the detail to be processed on the retina and in the brain. The area of attention during that moment is confined to a small area, of just a few letters - the area that can be seen best by the fovea. Speed reading trains people to do what is very unnatural - to try to process a very large area as one large piece - much of it outside the visual angle projecting to our fovea. And this is done with much fewer, larger shifts, staring in an effort to grasp meaning from the large area. Our brain does certainly use the peripheral area, but more to calculate where to land the next shift than to process it in an any analytical manner.
You don't have to fixate on every letter - or even every word. Some words are just one or two letters long, and not every word has to be fixated upon to grasp the meaning of a sentence. At first, though, it may be good practice to fixate on those one, two, and three letter words, as it helps you get used to confining your area of attention to a smaller area. Longer words break up into two or three separate parts, each fixated upon seperately. At first this can seem really quite tedious, and really slow. Your mind will want to race ahead. But to change the way you read after many years of unnatural, eccentric fixation, can take a long time and much practice.
After a week of going around wearing no glasses and not recognizing people on the street I've noticed that the best time I see is not in the morning or at the time when the sun is shining the most but about 5-7 PM. Is there any explanation to that?
I'm also wearing glasses with reduced prescription. I think they are one diopter less than I should be wearing. Is this correct or should I get weaker ones?
As for any results (I know I shouldn't expect any yet), I see that my eyes are less tired in the evening (but they get so anyway when I read or use the computer), but other than that the method doesn't seem to be helping much. I'm trying to do some palming, swinging and sunning, but I cannot really get the concept of central fixation.
And about palming, how long do I have to do this? Is it better to palm more often but shorter or the opposite? Also, should I have my eyes closed during palming? Should my eyes move at all during palming?
Even just your eyes not being so tired is a good thing. Palming sessions are something to experiment with. Some respond well to a few long sessions, others short but frequent sessions, and still other do a combination.
Let your eyes do whatever they want while your palming. They'll probably move around a bit, that's fine. They may want to stay open, that's fine too, just make sure to blink if they open. Initially my eyes couldn't stay closed, but now I can palm for over an hour without issue.
1 diopter under is fine to start with, although the more often you can do things without glasses (maybe reading) the better.
Results as in clear flashes, might come tomorrow, they might come in two months, it depends on how long it takes for your eyes to relax enough for those. I just had a 20/40 or better clear flash unexpectedly after laughing at a friend's comment tonight. It just depends. Non-flash quality vision will also improve, but it will be slower. Jambo2000 is an example of someone who "got it" and dropped a full diopter quite quickly. Others take longer.
Just be patient, results will show themselves eventually. And don't try though either, if you "try" to do something to get a clear flash, it won't work as well. They usually come when you least expected them.
Yes, I am reading David's blog. It's really great-helps understand many aspects of Bates' method. What is strange to me, however, is the fact that in central fixation, you don't really need to look at one object no more than one second but you can actually stop at it longer, because apparently, just keeping your eyes moving is not the solution . Is that correct? If so, why most sources emphasize that focusing on one thing for more than a second is harming?
I had my glasses measured today and it turned out that they are just 0,75 diopter less than I should wear. Can I have the same effect with weaker contact lenses? Or should I abandon contacts completely for now? I see different opinions.
Oh, and what about going to work or college and trying to improve vision at the same time? I read the post about going to school and improving eyesight, and I see lots of contradictions. First is that you can do most of the "exercises" while you are at school or work, because they generally do not require you to take your time for a few minutes but rather to incorporate a new way of looking. But most of us are forced to do some close work and perhaps reading and computer in school and at work, which makes the eyes tired.
Has anyone reconciled eyesight improvement with school/work(especially close work)? Otherwise I don't see any possibility applying any method unless one mows laws or is a forester professionally.
Yes, I am reading David's blog. It's really great-helps understand many aspects of Bates' method. What is strange to me, however, is the fact that in central fixation, you don't really need to look at one object no more than one second but you can actually stop at it longer, because apparently, just keeping your eyes moving is not the solution . Is that correct? If so, why most sources emphasize that focusing on one thing for more than a second is harming?
Ill try to answer this, got a laptop today so im abit excited, it got abit fustrating using a small mobile phone..
Anyway try not to think about it as much. Thing is if you ride a bicycle then try to drive a formula one car, your not going to be able to do it....
You have to take small steps, shifting your eyes around like a mad man is just going to cause strain. Believe it or not 1 second is actually a long time and people with perfect vision dont usually stare at an object for much longer than a second. What I think david means is dont shift your eyes just because you've been told to. Move your eyes to what you want to see, Ie the trees, the man chasing the bus or the cute girls/boys. Yes it may be a blur, but you then do small shifts, examine what your looking at and if nothing happens ahh well, the key is patience eventually things will start to become clear be patient, dont let things annoy you.
I reiterate, Dont just direct your vision aimlessly.
I maybe wrong here but I believe the way vision works is you always concentrate on the center of your visual field but your peripharal vision is actually always 'clear'.... Its just that your peripharal visions main objective is to pick up movements then you direct your central visual field to that thing.
Think of it this way you could always jog to school (or places when no transport is available) right? However you walk.... Just like you 'can' see your peripharal vision when you have clear eyesight but... its going to hurt.... So why not take it easy and just look through your central gaze.
Its a mistake I keep making when I have a clear flash.
First, sorry that I couldn't respond when I first saw your question, I forgot how intensive End of Grade Testing can be.
There is a difference between staring and looking, but I think Shambles got it pretty well. You look at something and try to use a small areas of attention, but actually look at what you're seeing and comprehend it, and then you move on. Don't stare, but conversely, don't move your eyes around like a maniac.
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There's a great video under that link showing how the eyes "should" work. The guy with glasses (although he didn't wear them during the test) self described his eye movements as being like a pinball machine. Meanwhile, Ronaldo's eye's were moving rapidly, BUT THEY ACTUALLY LOOKED! He looked at the knees, the feet, the ball, the shoulders, and so on in a calculated interested manner. I highly recommend putting aside 20 minutes to watch the first part and see how the eyes work on someone who knows what they're doing. That's looking with interest like David describes it.
As long as your glasses are at least a half diopter less than the normal prescription, great. They'll do fine. Just make sure that things requiring good vision like driving or operating machinery you can do safely. We don't want you getting hurt if you can prevent it.
Clarknight seems to say that anything actually touching the eyeball can harm it and should be avoided. Sometimes things just have to touch it, but from personal experience as well, I'd recommend ditching the contacts. It allows you more flexibility also to view things without corrective lenses when able, such as reading a book. Eyestrain may be reduced by not wearing them, and the contacts will likely cause problems as your vision improves if you continue wearing them.
It does require a bit of re-learning when doing close work, but it's not too terrible if you know what you're doing. Eventually I think you'll be able to read with little to no eyestrain, but as a side note that may or may not apply, even weak prescription glasses cause eyestrain while reading for me. While I'll sometimes get eyestrain while reading without glasses, it's nothing like when I have glasses and usually happens when I'm super tired or really stressed, and a quick palming session gets rid of it.
Apply as much as possible from what you've learned from David's blog to reading as well as distance vision.
When you are looking at a page, bring it away as far as you comfortably can and with just enough clarity to read it, but nothing more, which will be pretty blurry, but that's what to expect and be used to for a while.
In short, close up work won't hurt you if you do it right.
